Ma Yuxi, 34 years old this year, was born into a peasant family. He went out to work in the 1980s and then followed others to do jewelry business. In the 1990s, he came into contact with gambling on stones in Myanmar and became addicted to it.
Gambling on stones, as the name suggests, is gambling on stones, but these are not ordinary stones, but jadeite raw stones known as the "king of jade". There are two types of jadeite raw stones, mountain materials and seed materials. Mountain materials are directly mined from jadeite mines, without outer skin, irregular shape, many angular cracks, rough and loose structure, and poor quality.
Seed materials are jadeite mined from riverbeds. They are round or oval gravels wrapped in outer skin after jadeite rocks are weathered and broken and rolled down the hillside, and washed into gullies or streams by floods or river water. Gravels are large and small, and the large ones weigh thousands of tons or even From tens of thousands of tons to the smallest size of a thumb.
Since the surface of the seed material is covered with a layer of weathered skin, it is impossible to see the internal situation, so people can only rely on their own experience to judge whether there is jade inside the seed material, or whether the jade is good or bad. This makes it quite difficult to identify the quality of jade raw materials in jade raw material transactions. Such transactions are somewhat like gambling. Therefore, people call jade raw materials with skin gambling stones, gambling materials, or raw stones raw materials. Gambling stones is also a commercial behavior, but it is a rather mysterious existence in the jewelry industry. If you want to participate in it, you must have familiar relationships and channels.
The reason why gambling stones is called gambling is that even experienced masters cannot be completely sure. Some people buy a stone and Some people spend a lot of money to buy a stone, but after cutting it open, they find that it is all white, which leads to bankruptcy! The common "nine out of ten bets are lost" is a test of people's psychological quality. If it is found to be green after cutting, it is called "betting on", and if it turns out that it is all white, it is called "betting on".
High-grade jade is quite rare. Myanmar produces about 300-600 tons of jade each year, of which high-grade jade only accounts for 2-5% of the total output. The Myanmar government also holds a gambling stone conference every year and invites influential jewelry tycoons to participate. In 1991, the price of high-grade imperial green jade reached US$2,000 per carat! Even ordinary 7 or 8 carat jade ring faces cost tens of thousands of US dollars and hundreds of thousands of RMB.
Therefore, even if you will lose nine out of ten times, there are still countless people who will do so. If you are lucky, you can get jadeite raw stones worth millions, tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions!
Ma Yuxi is one of the countless people who gamble on jadeite, but fortunately, he once cut out an extremely rare glass-type full green jadeite and sold it at a high price of 30 million yuan. Jadeite-colored glass-type jadeite is very rare and its value is higher than glass-type colorless jadeite. Jadeite-colored glass-type jadeite is the best among jadeite and is extremely rare. An emerald-colored glass-type jadeite bracelet can be worth millions of yuan.
In this way, Ma Yuxi made a fortune. After several years of hard work and loyalty, he also became famous in the gambling stone industry. Who knew that the good times would not last long? In 1995, , he went to the Myanmar City Conference with his friends and bought a piece of top-quality jadeite raw stone worth more than 40 million yuan at the auction. After it was cut, it was indeed green, but the damn thing was that it was a dead jadeite! Dead jadeite, as the name suggests, looks lifeless, has no water head, is opaque, has a dry and rough texture, and has no collection value. So he lost the bet, and Ma Yuxi, who had high hopes, eventually went bankrupt. After that, Ma Yuxi suffered from losing money in small bets and having no money in big bets, and finally he was completely disappointed with gambling on stones. He and his wife returned to Yangcheng and opened a small jewelry store on Panshan Road, occasionally going to watch others cut stones. He would quickly sell the jade that was carved out, and if the price was right, he would accept it. Of course, he didn't have much money, but he liked it very much. Welcome.
However, except for a few cities in the south that have large raw stone trading markets, gambling on stones is extremely rare in northern cities like Yangcheng. Even if there is such a thing, it is in the suburbs or remote places, because gambling on stones is completely another world, another circle! And there are not too good raw stone materials, most of them are small stones, and the cut jade is mostly ordinary goods.
Although gambling on stones is not illegal and is a risky investment, most people have never heard of it in their lives.
===...We were just about to finish our meal when we heard the couple who came in suddenly quarreled loudly and then broke two plates. The woman turned around and slammed the door, while the man drank beer in big gulps.
Seeing Ziqing's doubts, the shop owner came to Ziqing and sighed: "This man is so good when he is capable, but once he falls, his wife scolds him!"
Ziqing answered absentmindedly: "Oh?"
The boss was delighted when he saw Ziqing agreed, "Hey! That man is Ma Yuxi, who was envied by so many people here back then! He is a big boss! I heard that he made his fortune by gambling on stones, and his assets are tens of millions! Later, he lost all his assets by gambling on stones. I told my buddies that gambling is a thing! You really can't touch it! What has Ma Yuxi become now? His life is very difficult! His wife quarrels with him every day." The boss's wife started to brag without knowing anything.
Ziqing was immediately interested when she heard this. "Gambling on stones? What does it mean? How do you gamble?" Because of her magical powers, Ziqing is quite sensitive to the word "gambling", so when she heard about gambling on stones, she was interested.
The lady boss gave him a look that said "you don't understand, but I do", and said proudly: "I heard that jade can be cut. It seems that there is a kind of stone with jade inside. Ma Yuxi made a fortune by cutting out a piece of jade! Later, he lost everything and opened a small jewelry store opposite. Do you think that is something that ordinary people can gamble on?" She sighed again, "We are from the same village. He was very successful wherever he went. Now everyone is laughing at him behind his back..."
When the lady boss finally stopped talking, Ziqing ignored her surprised look and walked straight to Ma Yuxi and sat down.